Sky Anytime+ soon to be open to customers on other ISPs - BBC iPlayer inbound too

Sky and the BBC have announced a partnership to bring iPlayer to Sky Anytime+, which is available on Sky+HD and the latest black Sky+ boxes.

In addition, Sky will be relaxing its rules on who can access Sky Anytime+, allowing subscribers to its satellite TV packages to use the video-on-demand service, irrespective of their Internet service provider (ISP). Formerly, the company only offered Sky Anytime+ to customers who also subscribed to its Sky Broadband provision.

It is this latter fact that allows the satellite broadcaster to adopt BBC iPlayer: "A core BBC value is to reach all audiences on a universal basis, so Sky’s plan to make Anytime+ available to customers regardless of their Internet provider is an important development in helping to bring BBC iPlayer to around 5 million new homes in 2012 – at no extra charge," says the Beeb in a statement.

BBC iPlayer is already available on rival pay-TV platforms, such as Virgin Media and BT Vision, so this deal is an important step for Sky to catch up when it comes to, ahem, catch-up services.

It will be coming to the company's compatible boxes later this year.

UPDATE: Sky has also announced that ITV Player will also be arriving on Sky Anytime+ soon.

Will BBC iPlayer improve the Sky service, or is it irrelevant to you? And are you happy that you will be able to access Sky Anytime+ even if you're not a Sky Broadband user? Let us know in the comments below...